When He's Asleep
by sbrianson
Summary: In the quiet of the night, Sirius ponders the thoughts about Remus that he's not allowed to have during the day. Slash.


"When He's Asleep"

Pairing: Sirius Black / Remus Lupin

Rating: "R" – for language and slash content

DISCLAIMER: This story is fictional – that's F-I-C-T-I-O-N. It never happened, and is not real. It is the product of my own imagination. It contains descriptions of male slash (that's male/male homosexual relations). If you do not like this type of content, or if you find homosexuality or its practice offensive, please click the "Back" button or close your Internet browser NOW, and do not read any further. All characters and copyrights are owned by J.K Rowling and Warner Brothers™ (AOL Time Warner), but this story is owned by me and is all my own work.

* * *

When he's asleep, that's when I _know_. 

When he's asleep, that's when I _can_.

When he's asleep, that's when I _do_.

When he's asleep.

_When I can't get caught_.

The daytime is the worst. That's when I have to act like Sirius Black is expected to act in public. Laughing at all the girls' jokes and comments – all the girls who fancy me and want me. But that's not the hardest part. I have to act as if I want _them_, too. Playing those fucking stupid scoring games with Prongs and Wormtail. You know, arse – seven out of ten, tits – nine out of ten, legs, overall body, and total shagability. Well, shit on a shingle! If that's the type of thing that straight men do with their time, then frankly, I'm bloody glad I'm _not_ one. All those childish, degrading games.

Moony never plays those games…

But then again, Moony never plays with himself, either. I remember when that became common knowledge – at least, amongst the Marauders, anyway. You know, Prongs is a great guy and all, but _fuck_! Sometimes he just goes too far, y'know? We'd all been caught, you know… wanking off… at some point in the last four and a half years by the others. Except Moony. He'd caught Prongs at it during a free period. But far from being jovial or grown up about it, like Wormtail and me (okay, so we'd both gone bright red, shouted, sworn and threatened the others with immediate, painful death if they _ever_ told anyone… but at least we would admit it, drop the subject and get on with life), he'd attacked Moony over it in his defence. Saying that _Moony_ was abnormal or immature for _not_ doing it. Calling him a liar when he was asked about it and Moony said he doesn't do it. Because he doesn't want to. And Prongs went on at him further over his choice of language – so formal, so _clinical_, every word taken from an anatomy textbook. "So ignorant," Prongs had said, "of the great, manly topic of sex"…

Did it never occur to him that using the proper words for stuff is such a _Moony_ thing to do? In my opinion, using the "correct, anatomical terminology" (Moony knows _all_ the long words, _and_ how to use them!) is _far_ from being ignorant. And just because Moony doesn't wish to broadcast every aspect of his personal life (and bedtime habits) to the entire dormitory, it doesn't mean that he doesn't know how to have one. If he _wanted_ one.

"Devoid of sexuality," Prongs had snorted.

"Far from it!" Moony had replied, curtly. And the matter had been dropped.

Funny, the incidents which one remembers at random moments in time, isn't it?

Moony never plays the scoring game. I wish _I_ didn't have to...

At least nobody has tried to set me up with anyone yet. Prongs keeps threatening to do that, but so far he's managed not to deliver on that promise. I wish I could tell them all why I don't want it… but my sodding family's values have still got me kind of convinced that being a queer is really _wrong_. I dunno, really. I guess I'm just frightened. Or too cowardly. Imagine that! Sirius Black, actually _frightened_ of something! Well, I guess that sometimes miracles _do_ happen, huh!

But what _am_ I frightened of? Rejection? _Acceptance_? Discovery? I've played this game for so long that I don't even _know_ anymore.

But at night, it's all different. Because that's when Moony goes to sleep. Don't get me wrong – I'd love to spend hours and hours in his company. But when he's asleep – when they're all asleep – I can sneak through his drawn curtains and into his bed space. And I can watch him sleep. Curled up in a tightly drawn ball, his body still, his chest gently rising and falling, his eyelids flickering. His face pulled into an expression that's not quite a grin, not quite a smirk…

An expression that I know so well…

The one he only ever wears when he is contented. Completely and utterly contented. Safe from the worries and burdens of the real world, his life, his curse…

And I creep gently back to my own bed, so as not to wake him. Thinking. Trying to imagine what he is dreaming about. Is he dreaming of adventure? Of love? Girls? _Boys_? Of a world where he isn't a second-class citizen? Or of just sitting quietly in a corner, reading a book? Well, if I know him as well as I like to think I do, he's probably dreaming of the Land of Chocolate! I swear, that boy has got a "_little problem_" with being obsessed about the sweet, sugary goodness of choc – oh, fuck it! Who _doesn't_ get a little chocolate addiction every now and then!

But as I begin to drift off into my own waiting dreamland, it does not stop me feeling so hopeful and so disappointed at the same time. For as I dream, I dream of him. Not curled up in his favourite stripy pyjamas as he was when I left him, but this time we're in a dance-hall in Buenos Aires, or a restaurant in Paris, or having a stroll through Hyde Park. Together. Just the two of us, for in my dreams there is only room for the two of us.

And barely enough room for me…

When he's asleep, that's when I _know_…

When he's asleep, that's when I _can_…

When he's asleep, that's when I love him, because I'm not allowed to at any other time.

I just want to hold him… but I can't…

I just want to touch him… but I can't…

I just want to kiss him… but I can't…

I just want to breathe him… but I can't…

I just want to fuck his bloody brains out!… but I can't…

Because he might wake up, and how the bloody Hell do I explain myself? To him? To everyone else?

As I watch him sleep, I love him, quietly, from afar. And I love him so much and so hard that it makes me feel sick, physically sick. Knowing that he's only two feet away from me just makes it worse, because he's so close, yet so far away…

Because I know that I can never have him…

_That I _will_ never have him_…

And as I begin the slumber so longingly awaited yet dreaded and feared and cherished and yearned for, my thoughts are with him. And as I fall into my own desperate dreamland, every fibre of my being and my soul wanting…

willing…

wishing…

imagining…

dreaming…

hoping…

longing…

praying…

yearning…

aching…

_pleading_...

_screaming_…

… that Remus, my precious, beautiful, clever, gorgeous, lovely, sensitive, delicate, private, chocoholic Remus…

... will dream away, happy as can possibly be…

... will dream of me, just as I dream of him…


End file.
